


Magic To-do

by ms_adventure



Category: New World Magischola (Live-Action Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Backstory, Feelings, Sorry Not Sorry, a mundane among the magimundi, aids epidimic, queerness, what is magic anyway, why we make art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-02 05:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10938069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_adventure/pseuds/ms_adventure
Summary: When you’re a friend of Dorothy, if you know one thing it’s that there’s no place like home.





	Magic To-do

* * *

Jinx Davies grows up surrounded by magic –– just a different sort. A mundane magic: a magic of glitter and undaunted joy; a magic of death and isolation. When you have nothing, that's what you make magic of. Her fathers are unsurprised when she does remarkable things. She is their chosen child. Of course she is magic.  
          She can lip sync along with Papa Saul to every one of his songs. She is word perfect, every song on Madonna’s 1984 album, Like a Virgin, memorized. A tiny Jinx performs Material Girl with the Dads as an encore to their drag fundraiser supporting Act Up. She had insisted. And onstage she glows. Joy, pride, and makeup, or magic? In that moment, who could say what the difference is?  
          When she is not much older, Jinx begs to design the Dads’ costumes. With a keen eye –– and an unabashed love of feathers and sequins and rhinestones –– she sketches and patterns marvels. In intricacies of trim and seam, she hides symbols of protection, safety, longevity. Her fervent wishes in every line. And it works, doesn’t it? Magic? Or chance and care? It doesn’t matter to Jinx. The Dads survive. So many of her uncles do not.

* * *

Then the Cinnabar Society finds her –– a dull agent in a dull suit, who Jinx dislikes immediately on stylistic principle. What follows is a blur; the stalking in St. Marks, the staged accident, the strange revelation, the rebellion, the plan:

        The Suit was out of place in Trash & Vaudeville. I mean, you _could_ wear a suit in  
                    Trash  & Vaudeville without being a complete disaster, but this suit didn’t fit. The  
                    lapels weren’t skinny-boy narrow and they weren’t wide, with a dominating  
                    line – a palette for a nosegay in the top button hole. It was boring. A middling  
                    sort of tailoring, meant to be passed over and forgotten. And here, where every  
                    customer dressed like a peacock, clothing lovingly embellished to be _seen,_ here  
                    that sort of suit got you side eye. 

        And the Suit kept looking at me. Circling the racks, no attention for the clothes,  
                    obviously out of place. And looking at me. Like she was measuring something  
                    invisible. Ew.

        Finally she just blurted it out: “You’re Jinx Davies?” she asked like she couldn’t  
                    believe it. 

        “Okay, so how do you know my name? I don’t know you. I’d recognize that  
                    tasteless travesty.” I started edging toward the door. Who was this creep? 

        The Suit followed. “I need to talk to you,” she said. 

        “Look lady, no.” I caught the eye of Karl at the counter and mouthed _what the fuck…_  
                    He shrugged. I ducked out the door. 

        I tried to lose her in the street, but then it got weird. It got  
                    noise-cancelling-headphones-silent. And I think that car drove through me? It was like  
                    the world was operating at two different speeds: one for the rest of the world and one  
                    for just us. 

         “Jinx we have to talk,” said the Suit. 

        “The hell is happening, we have to talk? The world’s stopped working!” This was  
                    my weirdest day.

        And then it got super weird. She was holding something in her hand, and I couldn’t see  
                    it very well, but it was about the size of an egg or a toy grenade. Then she did _something_  
                    and it opened like one of those metal birthday flowers –– you know the ones that start  
                    when you light the candles? that bloom and spin around and play that tinny music ––  
                    So then she’s holding this glowy-spinny-egg-grenade in the middle of the too-quiet street  
                    and the sushi place down the block had developed a blue neon addiction. Perfect.

        So while I was freaking out, the Suit grabbed me and dragged me into the newly  
                    neon-esque sushi place. Only once we were inside it wasn’t. Instead we were in an  
                    awful room. The walls were cinderblock and painted pale green. There was an awful  
                    fake wood grain formica table and two very uncomfortable plastic chairs. And that was it.  
                    Basically picture an interrogation room furnished by an elementary school. Yeah, gross.  
                    No mirrors though. 

        But there was still a door. I hadn’t expected that door –– the one from the sushi restaurant ––  
                    right there in the wall…where you’d expect a door to be. Although after the entrance of the  
                    Suit into my life, who knew where that door would lead. I didn’t care. It was still a way out. 

        “What the fuck?” I said aloud this time.

        “You’re mouthy for a pre-teen,” said the Suit. “Why don’t you sit down, so we can talk?”

        “Uh…bye, Felicia,” I was not here for this. That door was my new best friend. 

        “That isn’t my name, Jinx,” she said, gently, as if I was supposed to be devastated. I sighed  
                    and rolled my eyes. “I don’t care?” 

        “Jinx I need to to listen” she said, “I have something important to tell you.” 

        She took a deep breath, then looked me in the eyes so that I’d know she was serious, and said,  
                    “Jinx, you can do magic.” This was not a surprise. The Dads had been calling my projects  
                    Magic forever. I shrugged. “Yes? And?”

        “You don’t understand. You can do magic like I just did magic. You don’t belong in the  
                    Mundane world. I can help you. There’s a special school for kids like you –“

        I interrupted her. “What is this? Harry Potter meets the X-men?” 

        The Suit looked at me with mild bafflement. “Harry who?”

        “O.M.G., do you live under a rock?” 

        Her expression became one of greater confusion. Then she shook her head, as if to clear  
                    away some distraction. “Jinx, you need to learn how to channel and control your magic.  
                    You’re very talented. That’s why we noticed you. You deserve this training. And we’ll  
                    support you. I work for the Cinnabar Society. We find special children like you and  
                    sponsor them. We pay room and board and admission fees. We’re here to help.” 

        This didn’t sound so bad. “Okay, but why did you kidnap me?”

        “You misunderstand, Jinx. I just needed to explain the situation to you. You wouldn’t  
                    listen. I just needed you to hear me out, so you’d understand. I know the transition  
                    can be difficult. It was for me.” 

        “Whoa, whoa whoa ––“ I had to stop her right there. _“Transition?”_

        “Of course,” The Suit didn’t seem to be getting it. “The transition from a Mundane  
                    society to the Magimundi.”

        “Right, this magic boarding school.” I spoke slowly and clearly, nodding my head. This  
                    had to be some stupid prank. But the quiet, and the, yes, the teleportation…that had  
                    actually happened.

        “The Providence Preparatory Academy for the Advancement of Arcane Arts is hardly a  
                    mere boarding school.” She was enthusiastic now. “P2A4 will change your life. It will  
                    change your understanding of the world. It will also teach you the correct and most  
                    efficient way to work those protection spells into your designs.” 

        “Look, lady, I said I’d go to you P2A-thingy. But, school doesn’t start until, like,  
                    September, and right now, as it’s JULY, I’d like to go home.” I got up to leave. 

        “But you can’t, Jinx,” she said. Yet she made no effort to stop me.

        “Sure I can,” I told her with utter confidence. I was nine and I’d lived in the City all my  
                    life. No matter if she’d dragged my ass to Inwood with that portal device, I could get back  
                    to the Dads. 

        “You don’t have a Mundane home anymore, Jinx,” she said, quietly. “You have to leave it all.  
                    That’s the price.”

        “That’s some bullshit,” I said as I went for the door. “I’ll pass. Besides what would I tell the  
                    Dads? Sorry, you’ve been the best, but it turns out I’m as magic as you’ve always said and  
                    I have to just do this for me?”

        “Oh that’s already been taken care of.” And she dismissed the Dads with a little wave. She  
                    actually did that. Bitch. “They think you’re dead. There was an accident. That car ran you  
                    down. You should have been more careful crossing the street. The mangled meat-puppet I  
                    left in the road is convincing enough.”

        “WHAT?” I froze. I was so ready to walk away, and I froze. Oh no she did not. 

        “It’s better this way,” the Suit assured me. But she didn’t sound so certain. 

        Okay, fuck this. I didn’t know where I was, but wherever this back-alley abduction hole was  
                    located, it wasn’t that far from the “mundane” and familiar because –– dot dot dot –– I had  
                    cell service. So I texted the Dads. I should have called. They would have been more reassured  
                    by my voice. But I couldn’t risk it. And the Suit wasn’t looking at my hands. In fact, she  
                    couldn’t look at me at all.

                  –– papa? daddy?  
                              –– Who is this?  
                              How did you get this number?  
                              This isn’t funny.  
                              –– jinx  
                              who else would it be?  
                              why?  
                              what’s going on?  
                              –– Princess?  
                              –– of course daddy  
                              –– OMG you’re okay?  
                              –– i’m magic  
                              what’s going on?  
                              –– Nothing sweetheart. You’re okay.  
                              –– I am  
                              really  
                              just checking in  
                              also can i dye my hair red?  
                              like bright bright  
                              –– Anything, baby. 

        The Suit was still talking, extolling the virtues of P2-go-fuck-your-magic-school. So I had to  
                    stop her.

        “It won’t work,” I said. 

        “What won’t? We’ll see you’re taken care of and we’ll pay all of P2A4’s fees.”  
                    The Suit explained very patiently. She’d probably already said this at least four  
                    million times. I’d stopped listening.

        “No. I mean I’ll go to your school or whatever. If it means so much to you that you have to  
                    steal children like some evil fairytale. But I’m spending summers and holidays at home. So  
                    it’s like a boarding school, alright?” I clutched my Nokia like a talisman. 

        “That’s not how this works. It’s a secret. We’re a secret. And you’re a part of that  
                    secret now.”

        “But they already know.”

        “What? They can’t.” She looked shaken. 

        “The Dads? They already know. I told them. Not about the school yet. But they know I’m  
                    alive. They know I’m magic.”

        “But –– how?”

        “I texted. Duh.” I shrugged again. She was not very good at this. “See?” I showed her the  
                    messages as proof.

        “They don’t seem concerned about your … abilities.”

        “What? That I’m magic? They’ve known for about forever. They’ve told me so since before  
                    I can remember.” 

        I thought I heard her murmur, “But we never…” before she pressed her lips into a tight,  
                    thin line as if to keep that thought from escaping. I tried to innocently stare her into a  
                    confession, but she just stared right back. The Suit looked so fierce that I found myself  
                    having to explain, “It’s like a family thing? It just means I’m okay and that they can be sure  
                    it’s me.” 

        “Look,” I bargained, desperate, “They’ll let me go to the school, if I tell them about it. They’ll  
                    let me do anything. And I won’t tell them about your “real” magic. They already think every  
                    little thing I do is magic. Just…”

        And for the first time, looking into the face of this child-thief, in her sad, cheap suit that  
                    screamed _Don’t Notice Me,_ I truly considered a life without the Dads. What could magic  
                    give me that they hadn’t? Where –– in this supposedly fantastic existence –– was the  
                    charm? Ms. Suit sure didn’t have any. Though she did have a faraway look of concentration. 

        But then I was remembering. I couldn’t stop remembering: birthday parties, the Dad’s shows,  
                    Material Girl, the clothes, the fear and desperation, the magic; a life made up of feathers and  
                    rhinestones and love –– a patina of glitter sparkling over it all. They chose me. The Dads  
                    chose me for this. And I was crying. And I don’t know when that started. And even Ms. Suit  
                    looked a little teary. So I gave her my biggest, saddest Pleading Puppydog Look and sniffled,  
                    “Please?”

        And…it worked. It should not have worked. 

        “How will you convince them?” Ms. Suit asked with genuine interest. 

        “I’ll just pull a Camp Nowhere,” I said. She looked blank. I tried again, “It’s a movie? It’s sooo  
                    vintage. Like early 90s? These kids convince their parents that all these different summer camps  
                    exist and they take all the money that their parents would have paid a real summer camp to rent  
                    a place in the woods and hang out and have fun. And all is well until everyone insists on coming  
                    for Parent’s Day. Hilarity ensues.”

        She still didn’t get it. “I’ll just print a fancy brochure and letter of acceptance and a scholarship  
                    offer and make a fake website. You are still funding this whole learning experience, right?”

        “That would work?” She obviously didn’t believe me. “But how do you know what will convince  
                    them?”

        I was utterly scornful. “Um…the _internet._ ” 

        “But surely they’ll want to talk to an actual person before letting you go to this school that they’ve  
                    never hear of…”

        I had to interrupt her. Again. “So I get some cheap, cell phones, no contracts. They can call  
                    those numbers for personal recommendations,” I was starting to enjoy this plan. “We hire a  
                    couple of voice actors to reassure them.”

        “We?” Ms. Suit asked, eyebrow raised. 

        “What? I suppose you just want to put a spell on them making think they already agreed.” I said,  
                    in a huff. Already my beautiful concoction was spoiled. 

        “I _suppose_ I actually could,” she said, as if considering this idea for the first time. 

        “Really?” I said, “really? So a little magic convincing is unthinkable, but kidnapping and  
                    faked death are a-okay?”

        “We don’t do that,” said Ms. Suit. “Using magic to override a person’s will is wrong.” 

        “Well what about my will?” I was yelling, “You were ready to use your magic to just carry me off!”

        “You’re a minor,” she said. As if that mattered. 

        “A minor with a fantastic plan. Like I said, I can make up a different P2Athingy. I don’t even have  
                    to change much: Providence Preparatory Academy for the Advancement of Artistic Achievement.  
                    Easy. The Dads will eat it up because I’m so talented.”

        “I can’t believe I’m even considering this,” she said to me. “You are a child. This will never work.”

        “If my way doesn’t work, you can magic-rufie them –– okay, yes, I see how that’s gross, –– but  
                    my way _will_ work, so you won’t have to. Either way, I agree to go to magic school, and you  
                    agree that I go home to the Dads. Deal?”

        Ms. Suit sighed. “Deal.” 

        And then she let me go home. I know, right?

 

* * *

So Jinx Davies goes home, elated. When you’re a friend of Dorothy, if you know one thing it’s that there’s no place like home. The Dads are relieved, overjoyed to see their magic girl safe and whole. They dye her hair bright as maraschino cherries.  
          Her elaborate boarding school ruse is a success, as well as a marked departure from Jinx’s aesthetic: the letterhead; the website; Mrs Suit’s outfit, when she liaises with the Dads; everything done in the most boring of bourgeois stylings –– ostentatious crests, a staid palette of navies and creams, and not a single sparkle in sight. It reads: safe, monied, institutional, traditional, legacy. Though neither Saul nor Robert have heard of the Providence Preparatory Academy for the Advancement of Artistic Achievement, and find it perhaps a bit straight-laced for their tastes, Jinx wants to go. And so they let her. And if Ms. Suit has something to do with their easy acceptance of this opportunity, Jinx doesn’t know anything about that.  
          In the fall, she departs for P2A4 and begins a life of secrets. But she still goes home every school vacation and holiday. After all, she’s got magic to do. 

######          
Consequences:

Jinx’s passion for artisanal artificiery stems from the early designs created for the Dads. Despite her calling to this specific path-type, she rarely uses the skill, and only for herself and dearest friends –– and on rare occasions, special projects. The majority of her school work falls closer to the techonphile and fabricator types. This is probably Lee’s fault. 

Her curiosity about the magical status of her birth parents, spawned by Ms. Suit’s singular off-hand remark plagues her throughout primaschola. She wonders at length about her lineage, but only in private or to her dearest friends, though in doing so, she feels as if she is betraying her mundane adoptive parents. Outwardly she has nothing but the fiercest devotion to the Dads. And after her first year at New World Magischola, she no longer cares at all. 

Anita Henley, aka Ms. Suit, herself a Mundane Born member of the Magimudni, is discovered to have allowed and to have gone so far as to participate in Jinx Davies’s bizarre subterfuge. This revelation occurs during Jinx’s 6th year of attendance at P2A4. Anita Henley is removed from active duty and no longer allowed to interact with the children discovered by the Cinnabar Society. However, because this situation had not provoked discovery of the Magimudi, Anita Henley was not fired but relegated to Record Keeping. Because she is both diligent and thorough, Anita Henley now knows the truth of Jinx’s parentage –– and a great many other secrets besides.  
          Jinx knows nothing of these events.

Whether through acts of Mind Magic committed upon them by Anita Henley, or placement under a geas by active members of the Cinnabar Society once Ms. Henley’s seditious acts are discovered, the Dads never reveal any awareness as to the true nature of P2A4. The boarding school hoax remains Jinx’s greatest prank. She never speaks of it. 

Jinx arranges illicit forays into the West Village to take her school friends to the Dads’ drag shows. These are Legendary experiences. 

Leland Radcliff-Forsythe’s eccentric attire eases the Dad’s minds about P2A4’s pretentious appearances. Lee has never blown up Jinx’s lab or caused any remarkable destruction while visiting the Dads. She does not visit often. 

When Jinx arrives at P2A4 and finds out about the Bartering Birch, she is _pissed._


End file.
